What we know about local grooming gang inquiries

The announcement follows weeks of mounting pressure on Keir Starmer to address the issue of child sexual exploitation.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper in the Commons on Thursday. (PA)
Home secretary Yvette Cooper announced a £10m plan for a series of local inquiries into grooming gangs. (PA)

Home secretary Yvette Cooper has announced a £10m plan for a series of local inquiries into grooming gangs, saying "far too little action has been taken" on the issue.

In a statement to the Commons, Cooper said despite previous inquiries into child sexual exploitation "victims were ignored, perpetrators were left unpunished, and too many people looked the other way."

The announcement prompted some to suggest the government had been kick-started into action by Elon Musk's slew of social media posts - a claim culture secretary Lisa Nandy denied, saying: “We’re not a government that governs by social media. We govern for the real world."

She told BBC Breakfast: "Victims have been warning over and over again, telling the same story about the systems that were supposed to protect them, protecting themselves, and young women who weren’t believed because they were young, they were female, and they were working-class.

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“We know what needs to be done, and as a government we are wasting no time in getting on and making sure that we deliver for those young women.”

Elon Musk was critical of the government's response to the grooming gangs. (PA)
Elon Musk was critical of the government's response to the grooming gangs. (PA)

The government's move follows mounting pressure over claims that concerns about historic grooming in towns such as Rotherham and Oldham were covered up and minimised in order not to inflame racial tensions.

Labour had previously rejected calls for a new inquiry, saying the focus should be on implementing recommendations from the comprehensive report by Professor Alexis Jay.

Cooper vowed the government would implement the 20 recommendations from the final Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) inquiry report, which was published in October 2022. She also asked police forces to reopen so-called cold cases relating to child sexual exploitation and abuse.

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On top of accepting the recommendations of previous inquiries, she said the government planned to "go further" and announced a raft of new policies and investigations.

Here are the main announcements Cooper made in parliament on 16 January:

  • Before Easter, the government will lay out a timetable implementing all of the 20 recommendations made in the IICSA, four of which apply to the Home Office, which Cooper said she had accepted in full.

  • Stronger sentences for child grooming and make it an aggravating factor to organise abuse and exploitation.

  • Ask all chief constables to look at historic gang exploitation where no action was taken and see if there are any new lines of enquiry to pursue, with £2m of new funding being handed out to help with this.

  • All police forces will be asked to produce problem profiles on grooming gangs in their area.

  • A new "rapid audit" led by Baroness Louise Casey to understand the scale of gang-based exploitation will seek the fill data gaps identified in previous reports.

  • This new data gathering will focus on the ethnicity and demographics of the members of these gangs and their victims.

  • The government will back new local inquiries in Oldham and "up to four other pilot areas", backed by £5m in additional funding.

  • Work with local authorities to boost accountability mechanisms to ensure the follow-up to these inquiries are robots and people complicit in cover-ups are held to account.

  • Expand tools of undercover police officers to find offenders using AI tools, live streams and chat rooms to access places where children are being exploited.

The issue of child grooming gangs goes back more than a decade after it gained national attention from reports in The Times in 2011. Since then there have been numerous local inquiries and the eight-year IICSA led by Professor Jay.

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But in October safeguarding minister Jess Phillips rejected a request by Oldham Council for central government help in carrying out an inquiry into grooming gangs.

A local review into the issue was published by Oldham Council in 2022 and at the time they made a similar request to the Conservative government which was also rejected.

Oldham Council made the request after survivors of the abuse said they felt the local review was "too limited".

News of Philips's rejection letter was then reported by GB News on 1 January, sparking an intense debate about whether such an inquiry was needed. This was picked up by Elon Musk who began posting prolifically about the issue, levelling harsh criticism at the government and at one point calling for Philips to be jailed for rejecting the request.

This in turn led to it dominating the British news cycle at the start of the year, with the Conservatives and Reform ramping up their demands for the government to carry out the inquiry.

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The government maintained its stance that it wanted to do what was in the best interests of children and was committed to implementing the reforms proposed by Prof Jay in the IICSA.

Prof Jay has previously said that she would not be in favour of another national inquiry, warning it would delay implementation of her recommendations.

But on 6 January, Cooper promised a "significant package of measures" on child sexual exploitation would be announced in the next few weeks.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch also tried to force the government to hold a new inquiry by adding an amendment calling for one to the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill, but this was voted down on 8 January with Labour arguing had it passed it would have killed the bill, delaying new laws protecting children.

Over the following days, three Labour MPs broke with the government's line that a national inquiry wasn't necessary.

Rotherham MP Sarah Champion, who has been vocal on the issue for years and presented a five-point plan on how to investigate grooming gangs, was joined by Rochdale's Paul Waugh and Liverpool Walton's Dan Carden in calling for an inquiry.

The Conservatives have hit out at the announcement as not going far enough, with shadow home secretary Chris Philp saying the decision to establish a series of local inquiries was “wholly inadequate”.

He said as many as 50 towns could be impacted by grooming gangs so the five new inquiries would not be enough. He also criticised how the new inquiries would not have the power to compel witnesses to attend or to take evidence under oath or to requisition written evidence.

“If that’s the case, how can they possibly get to the truth when faced with cover-ups?”

Cooper failed to say whether the local reviews will have the power to compel witnesses to attend, to take evidence under oath or to requisition written evidence when asked about it in Parliament.

Champion also said inquiries into child sexual abuse need “the ability to compel witnesses”.

She told MPs previous local inquiries lacked "the ability to compel witnesses, and a big strand of what we need to do is make sure there have been no cover-ups, and it’s only if it’s on a statutory footing that we can do that.”

Prof Jay said she welcomed Cooper's commitment to implement all of her inquiry's recommendations and that it needs to be done “as speedily as possible”, adding that “much valuable time has already been lost”.

In interviews the day after Cooper's announcement, culture secretary Lisa Nandy faced questions about whether the government's action had been prompted by Elon Musk's social media posts, telling Sky News: “I utterly refute that".

Asked on BBC Breakfast about suggestions from her ministerial colleague Sir Chris Bryant that the social media discussion may have influenced Government action, Nandy said: “I don’t agree for a moment that this government is being driven by what happens on social media.

“There is far too much heat on social media. Not enough light.”